6otM64 AAR

Welcome to the 6otM 64 After Actions Report. In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state victory date and score and the save choice (preferably in the post title), as recorded in the Hall of Fame, and the most important: your path to glory!

STOP - Please do not continue reading this thread until you have completed and submitted your game

Please attached your victory save to your post.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?

- Did you bother with Science?

- How did you pump your Faith?

- Were City-States helpful?

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?

- Did you enjoy the game?

Please use spoiler tags for any surprise details you'd like kept hidden. Thanks.

Players are encouraged to provide feedback on the game. Some players like to replay the game, and although we will not record the results from a replay, you can still post your new experiences (please state if the game is a replay). Please refrain from posting videos until the deadline for submission is over.​

 

T158 Religious victory:

Was a very lucky game for me. I killed Aztec at the beginning, just after they got their prophet and 2 great holy sites around chocolate hills. Already one contestant gone. Scythia (no religion) killed Egypt (who had one). So we were only 3 to compete for religion, but both Cree and Canada were not heavily involved in it. Didn`t see one single apostle other than mine and only one missionary from Cree. There was no contest whatsoever. Plus i found a relic super early and the spawning location was .. well .. legendary!



- How many cities did you settle or capture? Captured the 2 that Aztec had and settled 7 on my own

- What did you prioritize for research and policies? I prioritized the politics that help Dido to create a lot of settlers (cothon, gov plaza), holy sites. Archery at the beginning to kill Aztec. Then religious policies to create apostles.

- Did you bother with Science? A bit - there were nice mountains and great campus placement (including 6 science campus, no way i could skip that). Just got one great scientist though.

- How did you pump your Faith? Found a relic in first goody hut, helped get harvest pantheon. Then harvesting, good holy sites from mounty.

- Were City-States helpful? No religious city state i think? The rest were all right to boost early science and culture but nothing that useful.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it? Not much. Was quite easy as i got super lucky with how it went (relic, cleopatra killed, etc.)

- Did you enjoy the game? Was fun! I usually don`t go religious as AI can have such high income in faith and religion is, like domination, a bit boring in my opinion. But in this case it was nice and quick!

 

T126 RV

Settled 4 cities only.
I luckily found a nice spot with 6 adjacent mountain for a Holy Site near my 2nd city, but I then had to place Mahabodhi Temple in my 3rd city.
Golden Ages: Free Inquiry then Exodus of the Evangelists
Free Inquiry got me faster to Cartography, but it might have been a mistake. It took forever for the world era to change to Medieval.
I haven't played a religious game in a while. I made 'fake promises' to stop converting and accrued large grievances in return. I then got double DoW'd by Canada and Georgia (my fault for leaving a weak scout nearby). In the end, it didn't really matter, but I lost one apostle, because of it.
No civilization bonus toward religion or faith and no Religious CS on continent kind of made it a weird 6otM map choice. A science game probably would have made more sense here.

 

Very good

 

Your first post since Sep 2017 and it is to congratulate me? I'm flattered

 

T148 RV settled on coast luxury ,second city east on luxury close to Mayans and horses. Got a faith goodie hut that gave me the harvest goddess
Just made it for first GA and made a mistake of picking evangelist. Second 1 GA was also evangelist
I killed the Mayans slowly with 3 archers and one warrior ,lost a warrior . Lucky break he had a GP in his cap but was unable to get it out ,one less religion
Spammed faith district in my 5 cities + the 2 that i took from Mayans , beeline for cartography while keeping a friendship with England.
I built the colossus in my cap and the Mahabodhi Temple in my second one.
I build 2 sets of apostols with one guru each .
One going toward Canada who had already 18 cities converted and the other one thru the American Indians territory .
Great game
Thanks

 

T244 or 247 or so Religious Victory. It showed me the religious victory screen after turn T244 but the victory report page didn't show all 8 converted for a few more turns.

- How many cities did you settle or capture?

I only settled 4 initially, and that's all I had for most of the game. I picked one off from the Aztecs through a loyalty flip and almost got a second but he salvaged it. Later on I settled 5 more to try to pump more faith out and have a place to put GW but they didn't matter.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?

Religion, obviously, then beeline to Theocracy, then whatever.

- Did you bother with Science?

Not really. I built two campuses. One in one of the two completed surrounded by mountain tiles, and another accessible so GP could reach it. I kept up well enough.

- How did you pump your Faith?

I'm not actually sure. Holy Sites + Shrine + Temple + Mosque + Religious Alliance with England and some policy cards. I was never bringing in more than 200 faith/turn even at the end. Oh, and near-perpetual golden age, which was easy to maintain. Not sure if that gives faith but I remember being excited to take the religious dedication, which I've never used before. There's lots of era points in religion, I might need to give it a second look in other games.

- Were City-States helpful?

Yes, actually, I had a TON of Suzies, which turned into DF, which turned into cash. I had more DF than I knew what do with and could just build walls, districts, and I bought almost every building after the first two cities.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?

Nothing I can think of. Towards the end, everybody got mad at me for ignoring their requests to stop converting, and a religious emergency was declared against me 1 turn before I won.

- Did you enjoy the game?

I went back and forth. I've 100% ignored religion in almost all of my games, and I've never before won a religious victory in Civ 6. So I had to learn how the religious mechanics work and I'm still not 100% sure I understand it, but the difficulty level was forgiving. After I converted Monty and England, the idea of spamming out Missionaries and converting the whole other continent just felt like a big, boring chore. I put the game away and wasn't going to finish it, but then today I picked it back up and it wasn't as tedious as I expected. I should made a cultural alliance with somebody and forward-settled a city to get units there faster. I ended up liking this better than I expected to. It was a weird game. I did virtually no real planning or development, no military to speak of, no real science. Just Theater Squares and Holy Sites. Built a few Cothons for era score and trade routes but I was bringing in 300-400 gpt from the AI by selling horses, iron, and favor. Didn't really use any of Dido's specialties. Didn't need to. Probably would have won faster if I had. I had 7/8 converted by turn 200, and the 8th had been converted the turn before but flipped so I had to go back and re-convert them and it ended up taking much longer because they had a stray apostle running around flipping cities back.

 

There hasn't been a RV on easy in awhile. Plus we have had science recently. No one wants a Dip game, and this was the next up on the queue of Civs

 

Understandable.
I would just personally have preferred to have at least 1 Religious CS on the continent, because if I get this start on a normal game, there is no way I would go: "ok, let's aim for a religious victory this game" (notwithstanding my feelings for this victory type).

 

T263 RV
First ever attempt at RV - enjoyable game and mechanics although the Apostle spam required at the end was a bit tedious. Gurus useful. Missed out on Goddess of the Harvest (RIP), which would have shaved a lot of time off the win. Took out Aztec early, and left England alone with no religion. Ended up doing a lot of city building (maybe 10/11 by the end) while the apostles were doing their thing on the other continent.

 

How many cities did you settle or capture?
7 took 3 from aztecs

- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Theology

- Did you bother with Science?
enough for some useful inspirations

- How did you pump your Faith?
Got Harvest Goddess and built religious district/buildings

- Were City-States helpful?
Not really, I got suzerain of the freshwater one without trying and it gave fresh water to one city the aztecs built.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Didn't see many barbs or goodie huts, don't think I ever cleared a barb camp.

- Did you enjoy the game?
It was alright, religious victory is a bit tedious, first time I've gotten the harvest goddess doing a religious victory since magnus was added so that was fun.

 

Lost on T69, all religions gone. Not getting any good Pantheon should have been a warning I guess. Got useless eurekas from goodie huts. Lost a battelecry warrior to a spearman barbcamp in the red - looked like it spawned two archers in one turn that both attacked right away my high hp//high combat strength unit even though AI scouts were nearby too. Therefore I missed a golden age at 23/24 era score. Then I also lost a lvl 3 scout (not on marsh) by a single trireme shot. A bit unfortunate but also quite embarrassing

 

RV @ Turn 145
Finally, a religion victory - these are my favorite ones

Here's the strategy:

1. Found a pantheon (got Stone circles, the good ones were taken, Monty had earth goddess)
2. Found a religion (30% cheaper religious units, Choral Music)
3. Secure a Golden Classic Age with Exodus of the Evangelists (mobile Amani tactic)
4. Eliminate Aztec religion (Monty had 25+ faith per turn, but did not get to buy missionaries, I could convert his cities with a single golden age missionary)
5. Recruit Hypatia
6. Convert continent (used 2 missionaries - one for the Aztecs, one for England)
7. Beeline Cartography (~turn 92)
8. Secure Golden Medieval Age with Exodus of the Evangelists
9. Mahabodhi Temple and Hagia Sophia
10. Send Apostles, Missionaries and Gurus to second continent
11. Convert other continent without being declared on. Was denounced by everyone from the second continent except Canada, but no one declared war. This was helped with building chariots that were upgraded to knights ASAP.

I founded 5 core cities and a satellite one on the second continent. Played an otherwise peaceful game (especially after the last dom 6otm).

Very nice game, as always. Thank you!

 

RV t220 score ca 836... aka Louis the XIV

How many cities did you settle or capture? 3 settled, 4 Aztec captured to eliminate, and lat game 4 Canada cities to get holy site on other continent - and use inquis for those to save apostles.

- What did you prioritize for research and policies? religion stuff, then cartography.

- Did you bother with Science? yeah, way too much... last tech was railroads.

- How did you pump your Faith? holy site districts. captured, bought, whatever.

- Were City-States helpful? not so much... did levy one to get the Canada conquests, though.

- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it? conquering cities was so easy, i bet a straight domination with a converson of the last capitol standing would have been way faster

- Did you enjoy the game? Actually, I was kinda frustrated at how slow I was going around t145 or so, and let it sit for a while. Just picked it up after a long hiatus and finished it today, because thats what I do with XotM games... finish them win lose or draw.

 

Haven't played a GOTM in years and I'm still figuring out Civ 6. I don't really know what to do with religion in most games. I guess I spent too much time killing off my immediate neighbors and building cothons. I founded at least 6 cities of my own and eliminated the Aztecs and English before doing much religious expansion outside my continent. I thought it would be necessary to have lots of cities to get enough faith production to overwhelm the religions overseas. I see I still have a lot to figure out. Still, I liked being forced to go for religion and battle it our with apostles instead of military units.

 

Turn 126 RV score 904
Played this with the new patch.
- How many cities did you settle or capture?
Settled my capital on the coast, since coastal cities are amazing!
Captured the whole map but Râ-kedet, and razed about 10 or so cities.
- What did you prioritize for research and policies?
Didn't know how fast the king AI get a great prophet so went for 2 Holysites/shrines in the early game to secure a religion.
Battering ram don't work anymore with cavalry since the new patch, so decided to go for swordmen/musketeers but most of the AI cities weren't walled and I would have been better to go with cavalry.
- Did you bother with Science?
I had plenty of science from conquest even without focusing on campus. I also had pingala with the science promotion.
- How did you pump your Faith?
Mostly pillaging. I actually didn't need much faith, 2 missionaries would have been enough.
- Were City-States helpful?
I just kept Mohenjo-daro and Kabul alive on my landmass.
Also City-states tend to have a lot of improvements, and considering pillaging is pretty strong you can make quite a lof of gold/faith only pillaging city-states.
- Any surprises you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Lot of barbarian's quadriremes, they are scarier than hurricanes if you ask me =)
I couldn't find a passage for my navy to escort my army, so I had to build a canal city next to the cliffs of Dover.
- Did you enjoy the game?
Yes, thanks for the game!
edit: About the new patch : I didn't feel any boost to production from improvements to be honest.
But I am happy they finally get rid of Godess of the Harvest pantheon.
And the changes on Battering ram/ Siege tower look very nice!

 

T123 RV (not official)

This is actually my first Religious Victory although I have played a ton of games. Although I have not actually executed one before this, I learned a lot by reading up on the previous GOTM reports by DanQuail, Victoria, pahakuutti and others. My game won’t officially count because I played the first 25 turns pre-patch before a long trip, and then started over when Igot home because I was excited about the Pantheon reblance and other changes. I also re-loaded three or four times when I mis-clicked things like chopping a forest into the wrong city because I forgot to swap tiles or moving a unit completely the wrong direction.

Settled 1SW to work the Chocolate early. My Capital built Scout, Settler, Settler, and I then purchased a Builder to speed a Holy Site. Second City on T22 and the Religious Settlements Pantheon was still available on T39 (sounds like the AI does not prefer it). Second city was to the west on coast (could not go east because of barbarians) and made a Buider, Holy Site and then two Biremes and a Cothon for a sweet 11 Era Score (3 for first ship worldwide, 4 for unique unit, 4 for unique district), giving me a T61 Golden Age (Exodus of the Evangelists). Founded my Religion T63 with Choral Music and Holy Orders.

Only had four cities for most of the game, all built Holy Site and I had two high-adjacency Campus and two Cothons for the Cartography boost. I bought two Shrines, four Temples and lots of junk like Water Wheels using the massive influx of gold from selling Diplomatic Favor (over 200g a turn by late game). I spent a good deal of the early game exploring all the coasts hoping for a shallow water route to the other continents, but alas there was none. It took me until T95 to reach Cartography I entertained myself meanwhile by sailing a Warrior and Chariot to all the little islands to pop a bunch of huts (T89 Archery boost from hut, hurray!).

Mahabodhi Temple completed on T88. Stupidly, I promoted Moksha to Patron Saint in my capital and then chopped Mahabodhi Temple with Magus in different city. Oops! By the time I hit Cartography I had about 8 Missionaries and 4 Apostles floating at the coasts. These finally headed east and west over deep water as a trickle of reinforcements followed.

Aztecs pumped out tons of Missionaries (but no Apostles). I completely converted their four cities on T91, but they still had 3 Missionaries on the map and reclaimed their Holy City. Instead of bothering with a back and forth, I stashed a few Missionaries outside their cities until the overseas Civs were converted and wiped them out all at once.

England never founded a Religion so two Missionaries were able to quickly convert them near the end of the game.

Georgia met on T98. They had four cities, some were very large (8-10 pop) so took a lot of charges, but they never fought back so once three were converted they were toast.

Cree met on T100. They were also very easy - their four cities were all converted by Egypt but once I converted them with charges at T107 they stayed mine the rest of the game.

Egypt was another pushover, met them with a scouting Missionary who was far north of the main group on T101 and converted with charges on T117 as soon as the rest of the group arrived.

Scythia was last civ met at T104. They were by far the easiest to covert - my Apostles killed two Egyptian Missionaries in the middle of a cluster of their cities and thus converted 3 without needing to use any charges on T110.

Canada was the biggest roadblock. I met them T100 and converted them around T110. However, after I marched my units north they flipped two of their cities back on T114 and it took me several turns to march back south and re-convert them.

The World Congress actually helped me a tiny bit by voting that units of my Religion get +10 strength. They also declared a Religious Emergency against me on T119, but the game ended 3 turns later.

Some thoughts:

Planning Movement: I sent out a Trader to Antioch to road through the hilly terrane to the west, which nicely cut down on Missionary travel time. However, it would have been even better to just found a city on the eastern edge of my continent and buy Missionaries right there instead of walking them all the way to the coast!

Likewise, some overseas cities could have helped - I actually founded 3 overseas cities but by the time they chopped out Holy Sites the game was over. I should have made two Settlers and sent them sailing way earlier instead of messing around with things like Lighthouses and Traders.

War: In hindsight I think it may have sped up Victory to rush England or Aztecs, especially to capture a Campus or two. I am not used to King, and usually fear Aztec Eagle Warriors. But, they were pretty weak since Aztec was squeezed into a corner with few luxuries and did not have any walls up even at the end of the game. A quick Horseman rush may have yielded nice results.

Science: I wish I would have emphasized science more since Cartography ended up being the limiting factor. Only had two Campus with Libraries (plus thankfully two Science City States or it would have been way worse).

Enhancing Religious Units: I never bothered to Evangelize Belief for Mosque. I also chopped my forests for too early and wish I had saved one city's trees to chop Hagia Sophia. However, I am not sure that either would have actually sped things up since moving the Missionaries across the map seemed to be much more of an issue than running out of charges.

I learned a few things this game including:

1. It looks like the AIs still take the same Founder Beliefs in the same order as before the patch. That’s too bad in terms of the patch not improving this, but at least useful to know if you are targeting Reliquaries or Jesuit Education.

2. Barbarians don’t effect Missionaries. I was pretty sure they would kill them - was this changed at some point? Or, maybe they CAN but the barbarian in question just did not have enough movement points to "condemn heretic"?

3. Missionaries can’t open goody huts. I find this kind of funny given the trope of the Missionary visiting the remote tribe.

4. Akkad, who I met late, looks like a GREAT city state (universal free Battering Ram). Somehow I never saw this one before, so I assume they are a GS addition. I often play R&F.

Thanks so much to the GOTM staff - you guys have provided thousands of hours of entertainment for us all. I loved playing the Civ IV GOTM and am glad to get back into the community for Civ VI.